“You don’t appreciate the sacrifice our mum made for us, George”. It’s something my sister said to me many years ago. And I agree, I was just a baby when our mum took time away from work to raise us, and as a mere blob of flesh wrapped in blankets, I will never remember, or fully appreciate what my mum had to sacrifice for my sister and I. The sacrifice she made was one where her career as a successful researcher, was put on pause. Her salary was put on pause, her promotions put on pause, her work trips, training, and networking opportunities put on pause too. Put on pause, and replaced with dirty nappies, screaming kids, garish cartoons, and endless meandering babble. But there’s more… “I agree”, I would respond, “but you don’t appreciate what our dad sacrificed either”. And that was true too. Neither of us did. As one of the world’s leading psychologists, referred to by the media as the “expert’s expert”, we barely saw him. He was always leaving for some conference, or event, or for work, returning home from his lab, creeping to bed, to lie down next to our equally exhausted mum. His career never suffered like her’s did, and his pay packet was just fine. But the price of his sacrifice would be paid many years later, upon retirement… It was upon retirement, when my mum, although paid less, was fully embedded in the family, well known in the village, and surrounded by other mums and neighbors she befriended, none of which my dad had, that his sacrifice working those extra hours, became crystal clear. The price of those missed school plays, and evenings in with the kids; the bedtime stories he never got to read, dinners never cooked, or friends made outside the school gates. The price he paid was not measured in pounds and pence, but in loneliness and often, estrangement. And so, there is another name for “the pay gap”, that recognizes the price these dads quietly pay for working these extra hours, late nights, and weekends away… Let’s take a look.

2025-08-29